I probably will, I tell him, but there's a chance I'll be knackered, and watch at home. After all it's a 4am kick-off.

"You've got to come!" No ifs and buts. "I'll get you a cab."

I'm a lucky omen for Sam. I went round to his at half-time when Liverpool were 3-0 down to Milan in the Champions League final, and they won. I was also round last year for their defeat in the rematch, but he's forgotten that.

Three in the morning, and I'm dribbling on the sofa. I jolt awake. Jesus. An hour to go. No cab. Can't drive; I've drunk too much. I jog round - 13-something stone of 40-something blubber, convinced he's Rocky Balboa.

The streets are alive. Huddles of young men on the corners, waiting - even in suburban north London.

I run and run, convinced that if I can get there without losing puff the Hitman will win. I'm shadow boxing as I run, even though I've never boxed in my life.

Sam's house is electric. Everybody is up. Sam, his wife Kate, in-laws, girlfriends, kids, friends. He's got the drinks out and the curry in. He's thoughtful like that.

Sam is possibly the biggest sports nut I know. And mad though he is for football, he's madder for boxing. As a teenager he boxed, and the passion's still there. He's agitated, manic, can't focus properly. It's not the drink, it's the anticipation. He gets out his new book of Muhammad Ali photographs to distract himself.

Cameron and Jake, the two boys, are woken for the fight. They've got sleep in their eyes, but they're expectant.

This fight means so much to so many of us. For Sam, it's simply the biggest - two undefeated giants. For me, it's because I followed Ricky and his team in the months building up to the fight, and I love them to bits. For Bricey G, it's because Hatton is boxing in Manchester City colours, and in his head he's watching a football match with City playing for the world club championship. For millions, it's because Ricky is cheeky and funny, modest and normal, the underdog. One of us.

He almost floors Pretty Boy in the first round. We're screaming, it's going to be over within three. Ricky Hatton, undisputed welterweight champion of the world, greatest pound for pounder of modern times. Then it all goes wrong. Mayweather doesn't buckle. He smacks and smacks and smacks. The wonder is Hatton stays standing as long as he does.

We're watching in high definition, which makes it all the crueller. Every punch, every spit of blood is magnified. It's a horribly explicit physics lesson. Hooke's law of elasticity states that the amount by which a material body is deformed is linearly related to the force causing the deformation, and Ricky's face is losing elasticity by the second.

Sam's head has gone. He's utterly deluded. His eye isn't cut bad, he shouts, it isn't closing, Mayweather keeps missing, Ricky is still dancing, he's won the last round, he's within one decent body punch of victory.

But the reality is Ricky is out-thought, out-punched, out-everythinged, except out-loved. Carol, his mum, winces. His girlfriend Jennifer is bent over double. She looks as if she's being sick. Ricky is floored, and counted out. It's all over. Somehow, he's still conscious, still joking. "What a fluke!" he grins. At least he's all right.

It's inevitable really. Ricky was never going to be the world's greatest. But we so wanted to believe.

"You know you've not let anybody down," the commentator says to him.

"Well I'm not sure about that," he says. His eyes are welling up. His pride, he says, hurts more than the punches.

We leave Sam at 6am. He's more punch-drunk than Ricky. The kids are back in bed, the streets are silent. This has been the year of thwarted hope - Lewis Hamilton, the Euro qualifiers, the Rugby World Cup final - but nothing as bad as this.

On Sunday at Spurs, City fans sing One Ricky Hatton. It sounds sad and flat. We lose. It's freezing, it's pouring. Monday morning, I've stopped smoking, my chest hurts, Ricky's lost, life seems pointless. I pull the duvet over my head and go back to sleep.